PN Balaji: Singaporeans waiting for deep changes from PAP

Just read Balaji's on 'Singaporeans waiting for deep changes from PAP'

To me, he is one of the most astute observer of our socio-political scene. However he surprised me, and I quote him on this.

The argument that the government can check itself is being questioned in the case of immigration policy. It is still a mystery how a government known for its beyond-the-horizon vision never saw the infrastructural nightmare that would come with the decision to lift the floodgates for foreigners to wash in like a tidal wave. Trains got crowded and public housing became scarce.

The government had explained why but because the message was not repeated and appeared unconvincing, it was lost.

Perhaps financial market players are more sensitive to the foresight/hindsight experience. They experience it so often given that market cycles are so short.

On hindsight it is easy for Balaji and others to said that it was obvious what was coming. Even the near financial melt down of 2008 looks predictable only from 2009 onward. If you had looked into the future from 2005/6, it would be completely unobvious. There were hints that it might come in 2007 but often not enough to move your conviction to make bold and daring moves, which if turned out to be wrong would irreversibly damage your career. So it was the same why we didn't build more flats, expand the public transport infrastructure especially coming from over building of flats the cycle before. Simply what if the economic projections from the mid 2000s come in lower? Instead we hit the upper limit and beyond. The PM took the political risk of going for maximum growth hoping we would somehow manage and accept the dislocations. He over estimated our patience and resilience. Risk taking is his job. If he had chosen for slower growth, no doubt we would have something else to complain. Since many people are not able to think in counterfactuals, the argument here may seem weak.

It takes a great person to dare to fail unconventionally. Few people have the insight and courage to grow personal convictions against the consensus, much less act on them. These are geniuses and historically great characters. We can surely do with such men and women to lead us, but it is doubtful we have them. That is the conventional view. More likely they have no luck and our version of meritocracy could not bring them to the places they could contribute. This thesis is easily supported from various histories. Just choose a more familiar one: The Annals of the Three Kingdoms. A careful reader would see how the chaos and desperation for leadership helped to bring on successively more talented characters to the jobs. Had the Han empire remained stable and prosperous, most mandarins and generals positions would had been filled by the children of officials.

How many of our MPs have parents who were former MPs and ministers? May be we need a shake up but we should never engineer one because we don't know how to fabricate a good crisis.

The future of this place do not depend so much on the leaders we have than the people who choose and support them.